Lord of the Foals[Closed]

Her eyes light up at the mention that Arc used to work the reactor.

"You worked the reactor too!? Great godethheth! I'm not only one of the reactor engineerth, I altho act ath one of the reactor technithianth! It'th my rethponthability to enthure that radiathion doethn't leak all over the thtable!"

Jasmine beamed as she shared her contribution to the stable with Arc. She took great pride in her work, and loved to share with anypony who bothered wishing to know exactly what she did as a profession. She always thought it was strange that most ponies didn't take the information too well. Perhaps they just wished they could have a more science-oriented job like her too.

Sky smiled as she saw Gear thank her but was about to reply as the doctor took over and gave him moonshine, And Gear passed out from the moonshine. Sky sighed and looked on to the doctor, "your going to fix him right, heal him after what those little bastards did to him. right?" Sky asked the doctor who was helping Gear, who seemed to be rather nice the way he looked in the table. passed out.

Violet raised an eyebrow at ‘Jazz’’s enthusiasm, outside of Friendship City rarely ponies even noticed the glowing eye thing...for some strange reason. She reasoned it must of had something to do with ponies just used to seeing weird things in the wasteland, and the Friendship City ponies being a bit more sheltered...or something like that.

If that was the case...It would probably be even more applicable to anypony who’s been living in a stable her entire life.

However, Violet was not exactly keen on being studied in any capacity, it wasn’t exactly very high on her list of ‘Things I want to do’. Or on the list at all for that matter. So she quickly resorted to answering the question with a blatant lie to deflect interest.

“Oh, there’s nothing really special about my eyes. They just glow, it’s kind of annoying actually. It’s kind of hard to sneak when your eyes glow like this. Have to squint.” she explained, not a single thing coming out of her mouth being the truth. Not even the sneaking thing was true, she could just close her eyes and see right through her eyelids. Only one pony in the room, besides herself, actually knew the truth about how her eyes worked, and she’d stay quiet about them...Hopefully.

Turning back towards Lightning, the filly readopted her grin. “Alright, it’s pretty simple. First, we need to cut power to the Stable’s cameras. Right now Jack’s going to watch our every move otherwise, and even if we destroy every camera we see he’ll have a trail to follow us. Course Jack would probably send his little guards after us when we do that, which just means we’ll have to be ready for them, set traps. We take those out, we’ll have less to deal with.”

“But what if he doesn’t go after us?” Bakewell asked, suddenly butting into the conversation between Violet and Flash.

“He has access to cameras and we know for a fact that he’s watching us currently. I… I’m pretty sure I know how ponies like Jack work. Killing us won’t be as fun as breaking us. The moment we cut off those cameras he won’t send his guards after us, He’ll send them after our parents. They’ll be tortured and maybe killed. I know you don’t have any family or friends in the stable, but most of us do, and I don’t want to see any more of them hurt. I definitely don’t want to be the reason they are hurting. Not anymore.” The mare paused to regain her composure, which she had slowly been losing during her speech.

“He can’t be in two places at once, right? Maybe we should wait until he’s occupied elsewhere. While he’s busy maybe one of us could sneak into the overmares office and somehow disable the cameras? We’d have to move fast though. Like faster than a flying flash fast. The moment he sees that the cameras are gone there’s going to be murder.”

What Jasmine just said sparked Arc's attention. "So how did the whole engineering department survived? Most of the night shift, as far as i know, is dead, exept me, Spark Gunner and Tesla Spark. How's the reactor doing by the way? Must have been hard to keep that thing working and well mantained the year we have been gone."

That gave Arc an idea. He turned to others. "You know, the camera thing... Jasmine just gave me an idea. Perhaps we could boost the output of the reactor for few moments, it would overload the energy condensators and create a blackout for about a minute, also it wouldnt allow auxiliary power to come online. I think we could do this, but if i could, i'd consult this idea with Starry and Jasmine first, because we might also change the mountain into a crater if we would screw this up. Also, few ponies going to the reactor would create the diversion we would need. What do you think everypony?"

Jasmine nodded along with Arc only hearing half of what he was saying. Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she had somthing important to do. Why was she here anyways, her sister and Shutter were probably having a nice chat back where she last left them. She could be nagging Starry about how she owes her a birthday present right now! Her focus came back to Arc and she jumped in first chance she got.


"Arc, you're a geniouth! That jutht might work! You thhee, after motht of the engineering crew died it left more work for everypony elthe! And in an effort to reduthe our need for power I dethided to de activate the auto shut off feature for the reactor that regulateth the internal temperature. Then I shut off motht of the cooling mechanithmth! With thothe two thingth taken out of the picture that leaveth lethh power for petty thafety featureth, and more power for the thtable! The only thing ith that the internal pressure ritheth very quickly, but I jutht vent the thteam manually into the atmothphere and it theamth to do the trick. Tho if we work the reactor harder I'm sure at thome point ...whatever you thaid might happen."

Brilliant, is possibly the only word that could describe this plan. Unable to shake what was on her mind earlier she turns to Bakewell. "Bakie, what were we here for again?"

Bakewells eyes quickly glazed over as Jasmine started responding to Arc Weld. Science was anything but the cook’s strong point, and the technical mumbo jumbo that Jasmine was spouting like a casual greeting would have flown way over the earth pony’s head on a good day. The situation become even more confusing as the lisp coupled with the orange pegasus' words to form an intricate foreign language that poor Bakewell stood zero chance of ever comprehending.

It took the beige pony a moment to even notice that Jasmine had stopped the technical explanation in order to ask her a question. She brought her bandaged hoof up to massage her forehead as she tried to get her eyes to refocus properly.

“Um… you came here to stop Flash from doing something suicidal. I followed because I didn’t want you running around alone in a stable full of ponies that would probably attack you on sight… I think…maybe? Something like that.”

Arc gave Jasmine a blank look when he was sure she was looking away. He couldn't break that sunny attitude of hers, he would hate himself till the end of his days for that. But he also could undestand how could anyone consider saving power on cooling systems as a good idea.

He opened his mouth and tried to say something, the he closed it again. Then took deep breath. It also meant that the coolant wasn't cycled and that it probably screwed up the whole cooling system.

"Celestia on clouds above, i'm going to die" shot through Arc's head with a wave of panic. He took few addition deep breaths to calm down. He tried to talk again, this time with succes.

"Jasmine, i think we could do it. I would like to see status board of the reactor, but Stable-Tec build to last, at least that is for sure."

Lightning listened to his friends offer ideas for plans and watched as they also poked holes in the ideas that they had just offered. Sighing, the pegasus began to pace the room. Apparently, the lack of movement was starting to either get on the stallion's nerves or the situation was starting to drive him insane. "Violet has a good idea. I considered destroying the cameras as well. But Bakewell is right. Jack will simply just attack our parents if he can't catch us." He took a deep breath and muttered, "I already got to witness that..."

Continuing to pace, he was struggling to understand the engineering talk going on with Jasmine and Arc. To be honest, Lightning was getting less angry and more frustrated about the entire ordeal. "Damn it...damn it..." The pegasus' pacing slowly began to increase in speed as his frustration continued to grow with each passing second. "We have to take back the Overmare's office, disarm all the foals, and somehow take Jack out all the same time without him hurting any more ponies. How...? How...? Hmm..."

Starry struck the ghoul on his helmet, which deflected almost the entire impact of the blow. Security helmets were explicitly built to deflect blunted weapons, after all. The ghoul still felt the impact, albeit slightly, but it was enough to draw his attention away from Shutter and toward the blue mare.

Hotrod lifted his teeth from Shutter's shoulder, and turned toward Starry. The unicorn wasn't finished, though. After attracting the ghoul's attention, Starry struck a number of blows directly to the ghoul's face, where it was not protected.The repeated number of blows were great enough to break almost every bone in Hotrod's face, followed by a powerful final blow which killed him.

Shutter was very badly wounded in his shoulder, not to mention his broken nose. He wasn't at risk of bleeding out, but he would need medical attention.

They would, at least, be able to take the security armor from the ghoul. If they were to check his pipbuck, they would find a number of recorded voice logs.

7/12: " ---still surprised the foals let me live. Regardless, Sunny Smiles told me about a possible radiation leak in the schoolroom that's been happening for at least a week now. Been making her very nervous on the job. Apparently, radiation leaks have been popping up all over the stable. I'll talk to Firebrand about it tomorrow. He's the only one left who might know anything about that stuff.

7/13: "SUNNY SMILE'S NOSE FELL OFF! We spent the entire day in the clinic, trying to reattach it. Maple Leaf kept apologizing, saying it's not going back on. 'Her physiology has changed', he says. We were gonna keep her out of the school, but that idiot Ralph says 'learning is more important'. Young fuck is just pretending to care.

7/14: "Spoke to Firebrand first thing this morning. Gonna work overnight on the issue, fix the leak before Sunny loses any more parts. She spent all night crying her eyes out. Apparently, the only reason these leaks would be sprouting up is if there were some sort of malfunction with the Stable's cooling system. The radiation might melt it's way through some of the pipes in the walls and vents. He's worried that the system might reach a critical level. We've got a system built in to prevent a complete meltdown, some sort of unicorn magic thing, but we'd still get a massive surge of radiation through all the leaks. He said he'd talk to Jasmine about it. The dumb filly is apparently in control of the systems. I'd ask who died and left that idiot in charge, but it was obviously everypony who worked there.

7/14: "No sleeping tonight. Everyone in the stable could hear it. That sick colt Jack just gunned down Firebrand in the middle of the hallway! Don't know what it was about, but knowing Firebrand, he must've said the wrong thing. He was on his way to confront Jasmine about the leaks. He told me to try and seal off as many leaks as possible, before that surge he was talking about might happen. Well... I found one in the bathroom. I'm gonna try and fix that, and then I'm gonna have a little chat with the town fool. If what Firebrand told me was any indication, the radiation surge may be inevitable. I gotta patch those leaks, fast. I've gotta tell Sunny to stay out of the classroom, too.

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Doctor Leaf could barely concentrate on his work with the ponies all talking about devising a plan. The doctor eventually could take no more, and put down his instruments to turn to the group and address them.

"You don't fight these foals, don't you get it?" He pointed at Bakewell, "Even this unloved little bully gets it! They'll go after your friends, your family, whatever makes you shut up and follow orders. So why don't you just skip the heartbreak that the rest of us had to endure and start obeying right now? In the end, it's all just going to amount to a bigger mess that I have to clean up!"

While the doctor may not have offered any sort of plan, or even any kind words, somepony who had frequented the maintenance level, such as Arc Weld, might remember that the hallways within the maintenance level did not have cameras. The rooms did, but Stable-tec evidently didn't want to shell out the bits to place a security camera in the least frequented areas of the stable. The rooms in the maintenance level did have cameras, but not the hallways, and there were also access tunnels throughout the deeper maintenance level which could be used to circumvent certain doorways.

The escape tunnel that Lightning's parents were constructing was in one such tunnel, which was not monitored by any cameras.

Violet listened to the others, Bakewell had a point, they might not go after them at all, they might just go after the other’s parents. And while Violet had no parents here for him to go after, she still didn’t want more innocent ponies getting hurt.

“Hmm...Well, first Bakey, he’s not watching us, I already ripped out the camera.” she said, pointing a hoof at the discarded camera on the ground. “Otherwise though, that might work. I could get into the ducts and watch him from above, and smash all his monitors when he’s not looking...”

She turned to Jazz and Arc as they discussed the possibility of overloading the reactor. “That would make a great distraction, it would give me enough time to smash things into the monitors...And maybe Jack’s head...”

Any further planning was interrupted by Mean-Doctor-Lady as Violet was beginning to call her in her head. The filly turned towards the doctor, eyes narrowing into a glare as she insulted Bakewell. The filly turned and walked up to the doctor, eyes glowing brightly as she looked up at the doctor.

“You want to hide? Run in fear of a little foal with a gun who thinks he’s tougher than he actually is? Fine, I won’t stop you.” her grin twisted some more, taking on more and more of that vicious, off-putting quality. “But me? I don’t have any family here, they’re all far away in a city you’ve never heard of. Jack has nothing to use against me here, he can’t stop me. I will make sure he dies, I’ve seen what he’s done, he doesn’t deserve to live.” she turned to the others. “If you don’t want your families getting hurt? That’s fine, I’ll take care of Jack myself if I need to. Jack’s a mean pony, and I kill mean ponies.”

Arc stood silent for a while, thinking through the possibilities open for him to do. The maintenance tunnels were key,they were both poorly covered by the security and they also housed the reactor. The kettle seemed to be the important piece, if necessary, it could be used to hold the whole stable hostage, even though it would be foolish and desperate action.

"I'm kinda in the same boat as Violet, Jack has nothing left to threaten me with, not for a long time. I can make some show for the cams and lead his cronies to the maintenance tunnels, there i can play hide and seek with them long enough for the rest of you, maybe get a look on the reactor and give us some estimate. We could also use the maintenace to bypass certain cameras in the stable, get us close without him noticing. Or both, if we play our roles well enough."

"Wow Arc, I never thought that everypony would be tho willing to bring the reactor into a full blown meltdown!" Jasmine assumed that the other ponies had sufficient knowlege about the reactor. Sadly she didn't have as much ability to reflect on the consequences good or bad as they did. "

I mean I knew that it'd bring Jack'th attention off of everypony, but I thought I'd be the only one who had confidenthe in our abilitieth to keep the thtable from turning into a huge crater! Ethpethially conthidering how many blinking lightth are flathing in the control room!"

Jasmine took a moment to also comment, "the only thing ith that I dithagree about killing Jack. Yeth he'th a monthter, but he'th jutht a youngling... Given thome direction he could change..."

Jasmine looked around the room at her commrades, "do we really want to become monthterth jutht like him? I've thheen what random killing doeth over thith year, without order and thtuff..." Jasmine trailed off searching for the correct words to express herself. "We get a big chaotic meth!"

Jasmine tried to offer her view to the other ponies. Perhaps she was a little naive, but she couldn't support killing in any form at this point in her life.

Arc gave Jasmine a look full of fear, fear for one's life. His horn flicked and a tin can in the back of the room was deformed into a ball the size of an eyeball.

"Lots of blinking ligths in the control room? Are you sure? And for how long?"

Arc started pacing back and forth. "Damit damit damit... Jasmine, do you know what you have done?" the brown stallion said with only half sane voice. "Eeh, everyone, now i really have to go down there, so make the decision sooner than later, ok?"

Sky Noticed Arc talking with Jasmine Beat, and since the doctor their was being mean and operating on Gear. She felt it was better be with another pony to try and help out with anything, Just trying to do her part and save the stable.

"Hey arc you need any of my help or you can handle it?" Sky asked as she trotted up to Arc, not really sure if she can help out at all but she would still try to. Besides she had to do something to help out her stable, even if she isnt her anymore.

It was possible that Bakewell had other things to say on the matter, but any and everything on the mare’s mind ground instantly to a halt as the doctor opened his mouth.

”Even this unloved little bully gets it!”

unloved little bully.

Bakewell’s ears splayed back and her eyes shakily shifted to the floor as though it were suddenly the most interesting thing in the world. She knew exactly what she was and tried to remind herself of it constantly, but out in the wastes alongside other ponies, she had finally started to think that maybe she was capable of actually being better. Of being loved.

But Doctor Leaf was right, and hearing the words come from a pony she knew's mouth started sealing the deal. She was just a stupid little bully. Cruel. Mean spirited. Uncared for. Unlovable. If she died, nopony would really care. She was actually having slight issues not crying as the events of the day once again threatened to stack and make this reminder the last straw.

It was doubtful Bakewell would be able to convince herself to say anything helpful, though she would still take orders.

Arc thought about Sky's offer for a moment.

"Not sure Sky... i mean, i could use someone to escort us down there, but when we get there, i'll be best on my own. I know the tunnels just fine, and lone pony moves fast, and keeps danger from others."

Then Arc leaned closer to Sky, and whispered "But if Jasmine is coming with me, i'll need someone to keep eyes on her, and protect her from danger."

As Arc was whispering to Sky, Jasmine was completely lost in her own little world. She was excited about being part of a team and being able to help. And best of all, she was going to have the opportunity to work with another pony who was familiar with the reactor. Maybe he liked science as much as she did! Item one off of friendship check list, common interest...Check.

Jasmine noticed Bakewell staring at the floor with her ears back. Rather concerned Jasmine came offer to see whats going on.

"You ok Bakie?"

Sky only nodded at Arcs words, now she had to protect these two while they went to the tunnels or maintenance. "Dont worry Arc you can count on me." Sky whispered back to arc, she had to protect them both.that was new job now, just how she was here in the stable. A security pony has to protect the stable, and that is just what is doing.

After dispatching the ghoul, Starry quickly dropped the baton, and turned her attention to Shutter. "Shutter! Are you okay?! Your nose! You look terrible! Please don't die!" Starry blurted out, in a bit of a panic.

Starry wrapped her hoof around him, and helped him trot over toward a sink, where she could wash the blood off of his face and shoulder. "We need to take care of those wounds, Shutter. I want to heal you, but we need to find some supplies! We should take you to the clinic, but that's on the other side of the stable. We could find the storage room really really fast, but that might take a while. My home isn't far from here, maybe you should get some rest? We might have something to patch you up there. What do you want to do, Shutter? Speak to me!"

Starry was, as might be expected, smothering Shutter with concern, but before Shutter could have the chance to answer her question, Starry lifted a hoof, and snapped Shutter's nose back in place.

Letting out a cry of pain from when his nose was forcefully snapped back into position, Shutter tried his best to think about the situation, despite the pain he was in.

"...Lets...lets head to your home for a moment...but first, we should check Hotrod's pipbuck...maybe any recordings he's made could help explain the situation more..."

He mumbled, as he lightly pulled away from Starry and stumbled over to the corpse of the ghoul, as he activated his pip-buck and transferred any recordings on it to his own device. He couldn't stay about this radiated bathroom any longer, so he's have to look at them at Starry's home.

"Okay...let's go..."

Starry bit her lip hard as Shutter broke away from her and started trotting on his own. Once he said 'let's go', Starry quickly trotted up to him, wrapped her hoof around his shoulders (careful not to touch his injured one) and helped him trot out of the bathroom toward her home. This was, of course, after they had removed the armor from Hotrod. Starry just floated the armor alongside her as they trotted.

"I'm sorry you had to get trapped in here, Shutter. I know a lot of good things happened, like seeing your father again, and us getting the chance to help everypony, but I'm sorry my idea to visit our home ended up being so dangerous. I never wanted to put you in harm's way," Starry explained to him, as they trotted toward her home. "I love you too much to lose you."

Lightning shook his head and sighed. His frustration only got worse when the doctor spoke, telling them that fighting was useless. That was something that the pegasus did NOT want to hear at that time. He was never the type to back down from a fight. But at the same time, he didn't want to see ponies get hurt either.

"With all due respect, Doctor, I appreciate your work in saving my parents. But Jack and the foals has hurt my family. There's nothing more they can steal from me except for my life. And I can promise you, even if you and the other adults are too scared to stand up against this, I will. I won't back down. This stable was my home and there is no way I'm going to let Jack terrorize and hurt innocent ponies! Either he's going down...or I am."

He took a deep breath and turned to the others to see what they had for a plan. Maybe they'll have something to say that'll spark his mind. Instead, worry began to fill. Lightning glanced over at Bakewell who seemed hurt from the doctor's words but for now, he had to deal with this first. "Arc, you know the reactor better than any of us. If you need to head down there, it's best that you do have an escort." The blue pegasus would turn to Sky and pull out his hunting rifle, equipped with a scope before handing the weapon to her. "Use it if you need too."

Sky got Lightnings hunting rifle, his hunting rifle and he just lent it to her just to escort Arc. Yeah she really need to guard Arc for this, "You got it Flash, ill guard him with my life." Sky answered back, ready for anything that may happen during her little escort mission to maintenance. "Nice rifle, wonder if I get to use it. But anyways Dont worry flash I got them covered, I dont know about you but do something quick." Sky whispered to Flash, making sure the others dont listen.

Shutter stopped for a moment, as he listend to Starry talk...before he suddenly moved, and wrapped her in a tight hug, injured shoulder be damned.

"...You're...you're not gonna lose me, okay? I'll be fine..."

He mumbled, as he fought past the pain for a moment to try and give Starry some comfort.

"I'm not gonna leave you Starry, no matter what happens. We're going to get through this together, and we're going to save the stable...we just need to get the supplies, and then meet up with everyone else. We have to work together if we want to survive this..."

With that, he gave her a kiss, before moving back, ready to start moving again.